Universal
by ManofManyHats
Summary: Aang and Katara were born with thousands of miles between them, a hundred years apart, and don't even share the same language, but somehow, they still manage to understand each other. After all, a smile is universal. (One-shot set in an AU where language barriers are a thing)


_AN: I have no idea where the hell this came from. I don't read romance, I've never written a romance fic and never thought I ever would. For some godforsaken reason, I remembered one Kataang week prompt from months ago being 'smile'. Then this idea popped up and I wrote it in my head for 2 hours last night. I hope the sleep deprivation was worth it._

 _ **Important note:** The other language I used here was Indonesian. I know airbenders were based on Tibetan monks so using Tibetan would have made sense, but I was not about to butcher the language by using google translate. Indonesian's the only other language I decently know. Tips on reading Indonesian: Pronounce most things as they look. 'Ng' mixes into a kinda 'ung' sound. Any 'c' is pronounced as a 'ch' sound. Rough translations are in the brackets._

* * *

When they first meet inside that cracked iceberg, it is messy and confusing and endearing all at the same.

Aang looks up, dazed, at the beautiful blue eyes that stare into his, and all he can think to ask is, " _Mau naik pinguin bersama saya_? " (Will you go penguin sledding with me? )

He cracks a goofy grin, and Katara returns an embarrassed laugh. "I don't know what you're saying."

He tilts his head in question. " _Maaf, saya nga ngerti._ " (Sorry, I don't understand.)

Katara holds out a hand to help the boy up, and neither knows what to say. Language stands like a brick wall between them.

"I guess I can't ask you what you were doing in that iceberg then."

The words flow in one ear and out the next. Aang raises his hands, gives an over exaggerated shrug and layers another stupid grin on his face. Katara laughs. Luckily, a smile needed no translation.

* * *

It is messy and confusing, and the tribe is not too fond of outsiders that speak jibberish. Sokka tells her not to get too fond, and that someone like him can only mean trouble. The first moment she gets, she drags the boy up the hill where the penguin-otters nest, because it feels like a boy who doesn't even know her language understands her more than her tribe right now.

She speaks her thoughts out to the wind. "I wish there was a way I could understand you. I haven't met someone new in so long, especially a bender. And now I meet you and I can't even ask your name."

The boy can only pick up bits and pieces of words, but his friend's downcast eyes are enough to say it all.

An idea pops into his head and Aang scoops up a pile of snow in his hands. He holds it out to her. " _Salju_."

Her eyes turn to him and she smiles, understanding. "Snow."

He drops the ice and wrassles an otter-penguin into his arms.

"Otter-penguin." Katara obliges.

"Otter-penguin," Aang repeats, testing out the word, " _Berang-pinguin!_ "

He releases the penguin and sits back down before laying a hand on his own chest.

" _Aang_." He says.

She mimics. "Katara."

The boy hops on the back of an otter-penguin and lays in the snow as if ready to sled down the hill. He holds a hand out to her.

" _Katara, mau naik_ 'otter-penguin' _bersama saya_?"

She understands the gist of that and laughs. She takes his hand; no one can say no to that stupid smile.

They slide down the hill laughing, having found a window in the brick wall that separated them.

* * *

"You're going after him, aren't you?" Sokka shakes his head. "We can't even understand him."

"I don't need to. I don't need a translator to know that Aang just saved our lives. Now we have to save him, or no one will."

"Katara - "

"If you think you can convince me not to go, then you're the one who doesn't understand me!"

"Katara, are you going to talk all day? I'm coming with you."

That left her dumbstruck. When the words finally compute, she rushes her brother with a hug. "Sokka!"

"The guy saved us without knowing a single word coming out of our mouths. Pretty impressive." He raises a hand up in challenge. "Now c'mon, let's go save your foreign boyfriend!"

"He's not my - "

"Whatever."

* * *

When they make it to the Southern Air Temple Aang was so sure he'd find _something_. The Air Nomads were scribes and travelers of the world, they were translators and interpreters. He remembered one of the monks even giving him a manual on the Water Tribe language to prepare him for when he left to learn waterbending. Only now did he regret not studying it more.

The Southern Air Temple is in ruins. Every scroll, every manuscript is burned to ashes. Just like his people. Just like Monk Gyatso, whose skeletal eye sockets stare up at him, silent.

When Aang's eyes begin to glow and he rises in the air, whirlwinds whipping around him, Katara doesn't need a translation to understand his despair. And when she holds his hand, brings him down and wraps him in an embrace, no words are needed at all.

* * *

Language barriers are not easy to break, they learn.

It involves writing out words on the shoreside before the tides take them away. It means weird accents and speaking nonsense. It leads to impromptu charades when words aren't enough to bridge the gap. It means no arguments about stealing when they find a weathered Water Tribe manual translated into Air Nomad on a pirate's ship. (It is, after all, a universal fact that stealing is okay as long as it's from pirates.)

"Here, let me try!" Katara says, manual in her hand to double check. " _Nama saya Katara_." (My name is Katara.)

" _Bagus_." Aang smiles. "Perfect."

"Let me see that thing!" Sokka shouts, wrenching away the scroll and spitting out a few sentences that neither of them could understand, before spreading out the paper for all of them to see.

On the top, it reads:

Water. Earth. Fire. Air.

 _Air. Bumi. Api. Angin._

"The Nomad word for water is 'air '?" Katara half laughs.

 _"Iya, tapi seperti 'Ah-yeer'_." (Yes, but like 'Ah-yeer'.)

"Ah-yeer." She repeats, and Aang can't help but think how sweet the word sounds coming out of her mouth.

 _Air_ and air, he muses. There were many moments in those first few weeks where bridging the gap of language seemed too great, that their cultures were just too complex to ever be able to understand. The little coincidence makes him smile. Perhaps air and water weren't as different as they thought.

* * *

On and on they went, across yawning blue oceans and green painted fields. They learn, slowly, but surely. Katara still slips on the c's and Aang's th's still come out as sticky 's' sounds, but now they understand their slips, and they can laugh together afterwards.

They meet new people at every turn, with bridges to cross in every meeting. There's Bumi, who remembers bits and pieces of Nomad, but speaks mostly nonsense anyway, to the point that no one really understands him even when he's talking in native Earth Kingdom.

There's Zuko, whose tongue might not just _speak_ Fire Nation, but might be perpetually on fire with how rage-fuelled he speaks. His uncle, strangely enough, is a polyglot, fluent in languages from three of the four nations. If they weren't on different sides of the war, Aang's sure the old man would have asked him for notes on Air Nomad (which he would have gladly given).

There's the noble dialect of the Northern Water Tribe, whose people turn their noses up when Southern speak clashes with their own. There's Toph, who knows high Earth Kingdom and basic Water Tribe, but chooses to speak in a commoner's tongue. Her personality spoke more than enough, to be honest.

Aang learns all those languages too, tries at least, for it's the Avatar's duty to understand the four nations. Yet, no matter how many tongues he speaks, Aang fears he'll never find anyone who could really understand him. He was the Avatar, after all, and his nation was one scrawny monk away from becoming extinct.

Those are the thoughts that plagued him that night, as he kept watch as Appa flew.

Katara, still awake, reads Aang like a book. Elbows tucked in, shoulders slumped, hands tight around Appa's reins; she didn't need any words at all. "What's wrong, Aang?"

" _Enggak_." Aang mutters. "Nothing."

"Nothing? Really?" She asks, gently.

Aang is quiet for a long time, not really knowing the words to tell her, and not really sure if he should tell her at all. Katara's silence tells him to continue, and that she won't judge, and Aang starts to piece together words.

"I feel lonely. I'm the last Air Nomad left. The last person who knows my culture and language." His shoulders slump lower. "I'm facing the world on my own."

Her heart sinks with his. She searches for the right words, and find ones that are not her own.

" _Kamu nggak sendirian._ " (You are not alone.)

Aang turns back to meet the warm glow of Katara's eyes. He smiles fondly and says no more. If a girl born a hundred years after him, in a nation so different from his own, and who didn't even speak his language could understand him, perhaps he didn't have anything to worry about.

* * *

Even after the barrier crumbles, the two still loved the wordless ways they understood each other.

Smirks and smiles and cheery laughter. Warm embraces when things turn downcast. Dancing in a Fire Nation cave with all eyes on them, but as if there was no one else but the two of them.

They knew each other more than words could ever comprehend.

That said, they also quite enjoyed being bilingual in a language that nearly no one else knew. It was their secret language, something intimate, something their own. Better yet were the mixed-up sentences, half Water Tribe, half Nomad, with a little sprinkling of Earth Kingdom sometimes, which were complete nonsense to anyone but them.

But still they love those wordless moments, like when they walked out onto the balcony of the Jasmine Dragon, as the sun was setting after the war had ended.

They had come a long way since that day on the iceberg, they knew. On that day, they had spoken and had not understood each other, and today, they stayed silent yet understood more than enough. There were things that needed no words at all. Love transcended time, space and language. They were the epitome of the fact.

 _Temanan._ Friendship. _Cinta._ Love.

A smile meant it all. And a kiss needed no translation.


End file.
